


Stumble

by hazk



Series: Limbo [2]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Canon Compliant, Flashbacks, Gen, Season/Series 15, s15 e16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-02-23 12:53:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13190493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazk/pseuds/hazk
Summary: "Life lacks meaning and people are all about believing in bullshit to get over it, is all I’m saying."





	Stumble

“Biff…”

“…Huh. Alright.”

“What?”

“You never call me by my last name, is all.”

Reflexively, Temple felt his fist clench. In truth it had been months since he had last called his friend by any name other than his last, but Biff wouldn't stop pointing it out anyway.

“Yeah, well…” Temple started, not looking at Biff as he did. “Life’s pretty fucked so you might as well get used to that much at least.” He tried his best to not grit his teeth.

Although Biff never stopped trying to snap him out of it, here, he didn’t have anything else to say to Temple’s reply either. As always, it was as if he was choosing to wait for the punchline that just had to be coming next.

Temple never felt like coming up with one.

“Biff.”

“Hm?”

And that's all it took, with Temple's body almost feeling like it was doubling over as he opened his mouth:

“Everyone's in on it, everyone knows - they have to know!? Why, _why the fuck_ , are we still here!?”

With another involuntary movement, Temple’s hands reached up to his hair, flying straight past the blonde strands buzzed short. A mere second later, his arms went limp and dropped at the unfamiliarity of not being able to take a hold of anything there.

The flaring anger seemed to drift straight out of him, leaving him winded and with his eyes wide.

Slowly, as if steadying himself, Temple turned to glare at Biff who didn’t make an attempt to answer or move from his spot on the ground. The outburst hadn't shaken him at all.

“How long are you able to _‘play along’_?” Temple spat out with all the vehemence he could muster, which finally earned him a shrug. Temple’s glare grew heavier.

Ignoring the mood, Biff tapped his fingers on the ground and then drew a circle on the dust. He looked down at it and his expression remained as serene as before - uncaring, maybe, Temple thought to be a better word to describe him.

Nothing more special than that.

“It’s all bullshit, sure, but someone paid a lot of money to have us here”, Biff finally said and vaguely gestured at the drawing next to him. “It’ll take a while to get us the clearance to go back to Earth, so, until then…”

“Better stay calm and not get shot?” Temple asked with a breathless scoff that Biff answered to with a smirk.

“Sounds like a plan to me… And you’re the one who said it first, when you spotted me as one of the Reds.”

“Right…” Temple let out yet another breath that seemed to lack any air, not offering him any relief. Slowly, he lifted his left hand and tried to cover for the way it was lightly shaking as he went to rub at his eye. “Right.”

“Then… You’re done?”

There was a halting laugh as Temple nodded his head, his fingers running up to his forehead and adding a little pressure there. “Sure.”

Biff bit his lip and looked away, his expression unreadable. He seemed to think for a second, glancing down at the circle before cocking his head back.

“We really should smuggle some chairs out here.”

Temple allowed his hand to drop and the rest of his body followed soon after, practically collapsing onto the ground to join the orange shadow that always waited for him there.

“…You think?”

“Seeing how this is becoming something of a scheduled thing, we could just as well be prepared”, Biff replied. He lay back in a shift motion, his arms held uncomfortably behind his neck to support him, armour and all.

“What a strategic mind…” Temple mumbled and his lip twitched into a small, bitter smile. “If we had been sent to an actual war, you would have no doubt led us to victory…”

“Mark.”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

It worked for a minute.

Ignoring the use of his name, Temple turned to stare up at the sky in silence. Next to him, Biff had his own eyes closed, simply waiting for the moment when one of the usual continuations to the previous subject would come up again. They always did.

With everything in their Gulch beginning to dull down to a familiar routine, day by day, there hardly was anything new to bring up anyway.

That night wasn’t an exception, with Temple quick to give up with yet another long breath released through his teeth. He turned to Biff who had already opened his eyes in expectation, a brow lifted to prompt his friend to speak.

“Whatever they need us for, here… You said it yourself; someone paid to get results and I… I hate to think it would be for nothing…”

“Me too, but the actual war is… It's a big deal. And you got to admit that bullshit sells, too, so… Whatever _this_ is for, it's got to mean profit for someone so it's not like they'll just give up that easily.”

Temple stared at Biff for a second, not getting more of a reaction out of him - not that he was expecting to get one. And it's not like Biff’s words could make him feel any better about anything anymore.

“That really is your philosophy now? Not your problem, you'll just wait it out?”

Biff shrugged, and the motion was disconcerting with the position he was in. All Temple could think was that he must have been pretending, which in itself wasn't too unusual of him.

He had long since gotten used to the way Biff held back on how he was actually feeling just to overbalance Temple's more drastic mind-sets; waiting it out like a storm that would pass, to keep them both save. When they had been younger, it had usually failed and ended up with the opposite effect instead - making Temple entirely lose his calm.

Compared to those times, at the Gulch it had almost started to feel like Biff was purposely trying to skip straight to that outcome. It made sense, Temple had found himself thinking later, when he first learned for a fact that Biff had been lying more than he had been pretending. And not for Temple's sake.

“...Bullshit.”

“Loving the word, man”, Biff immediately said, either not noticing the way Temple's jaw had clenched or choosing to ignore it. He finally pushed himself off the ground. “But you’re right again.”

“And what about it…?”

For once, Biff’s gaze turned blank and he seemed to think a little more over how to answer. There was a twitch to his brow and to his desert dried lips, and he barely even glanced Temple’s way before answering:

“Mark… It really doesn’t matter.”

“…what doesn’t?”

His words came out quiet, and Temple knew they shouldn’t have reached Biff at all. And it was hardly a question worth asking, anyway.

“This, you, me", Biff said, not leaving Temple to wait for long and finally going for the actual answer: 

"Even if there isn't a good reason for this blue versus red thing, we can’t do anything about it until the people paying choose to let us go. I can’t afford to desert the military so we can’t just, _you know_ , steal a ship to get the hell out.”

“That's…”

“Unfair?”

Temple scoffed at Biff's answer and crossed his arms. He pulled the hold he had of himself a little tighter as he, again, forced his breaths to remain even, counting each of them.

“ _Childish_.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of pointless and stupid”, Biff chuckled, “but you had no way of knowing before you signed us up.”

Temple didn’t look his way, putting his everything into ignoring Biff’s sudden, and overly fake, cheer. He blocked the words out. 

“So we will wait…” Temple said in an attempt to end their original argument, as he always did when it got too much.

Biff nodded and got up to his feet. Reaching out a hand towards Temple, he looked away to give the Blue a moment to release his death grip around his middle and catch yet another breath.

“Hey…"

Biff's sudden words were followed with a thoughtful hum, showing he was struck by an idea. It made Temple's hand stall just before it could land on his.

"You know those movies where the villain speaks like a poet and the hero has no clue what’s happening, just mowing down hundreds upon hundreds of faceless lackeys that ate up their leader’s words?”

Temple looked up in confusion.

“…Sure?”

“Ever thought why those lackeys were fine with dying for something that never made a difference in their lives, beyond literally ending them? There should always be a reason beyond lazy writing, I think.”

Biff’s hand reached out to take a hold of Temple’s, dragging him up to his feet when the other didn’t make a move to follow otherwise. Temple stumbled forward while simultaneously trying to study Biff’s face for any kind of explanation.

There was nothing to be found though, with Biff still avoiding his eyes.

“Uh…” Temple looked around the space they were in, not far from the centre of their small desert. Hiding in plain sight. “They got to want something in return, too, right? No one trades in their –“

Biff was quick to interrupt, to take his chances with explaining his view now that he had gotten Temple's full attention:

“If we hadn’t ended up here and had been sent to take part in _the_ _actual war_ , how do you think it would have gone for us? Seriously, Mark… Think about it. Not just are we bad at fighting, but…"

Biff sighed.

"Any war in history, there are countless of people who have fought for the sake of being told to do so. On both sides. For results. We were put here for some kind of results, obviously. And if we hadn’t known each other? We would have had a ‘real war’, too, just because we were told to have one. Only one side could have been the victor then.”

“Biff…” Temple managed to speak out, his voice quiet. “What the fuck?”

“Life lacks meaning and people are all about believing in bullshit to get over it, is all I’m saying. We just got _lucky_ to not be pulled in on it", Biff replied, and it almost looked like he was grinning with his face turned away and hidden by the shadows.

"And about those lackeys…" Biff went on when he got no immediate answer, turning back to see Temple's expression. "They'd need a reason to feel anger – or any one emotion, really, to give them some illusion of worth – and someone to direct it all at.

"But we? We suck at this so, there really isn't a reason to make ourselves the targets just to ruin what we've got going on.”

There was a brief pause with Temple simply staring at Biff. In the end, he could do nothing but snort.

“…Dying for someone else’s cause instead of getting to lean back and wait for this to pass, it does sound pretty bad”, Temple then said, and the only reply he got was an approving nod as Biff went to leave for the night.

With Biff gone, Temple turned to head the other way - stepping on the drawing on the sand as he did.

 

* * *

 

“Biff…”

He hadn’t been prepared for the way his breath caught in his throat and he hated himself for it. Temple didn’t need Sarge’s comment to clear his mind, he had known his mistake the moment he had said the name out loud.

What had immediately replaced his surprise was the feeling of blank acceptance as he listened to his men insult the sight before them. Briefly, he wondered if he had the right to feel disappointed instead, and that was the moment Temple lost sight of everything else.

Orange armour on the video surveillance, stuck on a vent and flinging its limbs around like a toddler.

It was pointless. _Stupid_.

“Alright, alright - someone butter him up and pull his fat ass out of there…”

Temple couldn’t look away from the screen as his crew went to free the useless simulation trooper and dragged him back to his feet. He switched the surveillance feed from one room to another, to keep track of them as the orange soldier was guided across the expenses of the lair to meet up with him.

Temple forgot to think what he should say and how to react to the sudden appearance of the one man he hadn’t thought he would ever meet, especially with the way the Reds and Blues had always talked about him.

One thing was obvious, though:

Even with the sudden flare of anger, strong enough to make his vision blur, Temple couldn’t kill his curiosity.

The Reds and Blues had always been that – bad copies based on a time in his life that never should have been. They were nothing but a recreated mistake he had once hoped to be the solution he had been waiting for, to get back at the UNSC for everything they had taken.

Temple had seen the other Reds and Blues, he had been able to watch from the sidelines and compare the obviously -  _necessarily -_ poor copies to his own team. He thought he had accepted them as who they _really were_.

But there was no way he wasn’t curious now, more so than he could have ever been prepared for. Even after seeing this specific rescue attempt, he couldn't help but to wonder.

What would happen?

What would the orange soldier _do?_

Project Freelancer had chosen each of these men to recreate their original Gulch, which could mean that, underneath this shitshow of a rescue, the orange soldier might be –

At the thought barely having crossed Temple's mind, the anger he felt grew a hundred times stronger. Enough so to make his shoulders shake.

“Biff.”

 

* * *

 

“Here’s what we will do…”

Grif was glaring at him, and very pointedly so. Temple wanted to make him stop but getting the guy to shut his mouth had been bad enough.

And, most importantly, Temple wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to hold on to his fabricated calm. All of his willpower went into holding his tongue as he took another steadying breath well hidden from his company.

At least with the helmet no longer covering Grif's face, the situation had become a little more bearable. This way, it was easier to see him as who he was.

“I will talk to your _‘friends’_ and explain the situation as I see it… Then… You get what you asked for.”

With his reply, Temple chose to ignore the past for the sake of results. He had managed to dutifully follow his protocol and asked Grif to join their cause, even if for the first time he had found himself almost dreading the so-called favourable answer.

But Grif had said no; choosing his own team who didn't want him any more than Temple did. And that was  _fine_.

It really was the perfect solution, to leave all of these copies for death just like the Freelancers frozen below ground. If they didn’t want to help the Blues and Reds with the last steps of their long journey, they were of no use to him.

Temple could easily turn his back and walk away from the cells once everything was said and done, it was not a problem at all. The only thing that mattered was his hurry to get back to Earth.

This, all of it, was better than the nothing he had once been left with.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Limbo of no control, no progress, no improvement; facing an obstacle of your own making and faltering at its feet.


End file.
